Date: 1665

"If I had not elsewhere display'd the Evil and Danger of Idleness, and represented it as a thing, which, though we should admit not to be in it self a sin, yet may easily prove a greater mischief than a very great one, by at once tempting the Tempter to tempt us, and exposing the empty Soul, like...

— Boyle, Robert (1627-1691)

Date: 1667

"A Conscience unstain'd with blushing crimes, / Holds out in all changes of States and Times. / Mount Sion and good Conscience abide / For ever"

— Billingsley, Nicholas (bap. 1633, d. 1709)

Date: 1670

"Thus, like a captive in an isle confined, / Man walks at large, a prisoner of the mind."

— Dryden, John (1631-1700)

Date: 1681?

"My mind was once the true survey / Of all these meadows fresh and gay"

— Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678)

Date: 1681?

"For Juliana comes, and she, / What I do to the grass, does to my thoughts and me."

— Marvell, Andrew (1621-1678)

Date: 1684

"Much like th' ore-fond, tormented Lover, / Whose Travels Scorns alone discover / To th' chased Stag? Their Dwellings bear / Same form, sad-fortun'd Both appear, / Wilderness round his Fancy shows, / Which wild, disorder'd Thoughts compose; / Hunted by Dogs each strong for Scent / (Grief, Rage, D...

— Harington, John (1627-1700)

Date: 1685

"For, as we see in Princes Pallaces, / How all the avenues, and passages / Are strictly guarded, to oppose the rude / Tumultuous entries of the Multitude: / Whilst civil persons, who have business, / Pass through the Guards, and dayly make address / To th'Princes ear: so all the Guards o'th' brai...

— Clark, William (fl. 1663-1685)

Date: 1686, 1689, 1697

"Let us but consider a little the Receptacles of Images, the Regions of Imagination, the curious formation in all the Instruments of Sense; to which we may add the activity and subtlety of the Spirits, the delicate Contexture of the Nerves, the various Articulations of the Voice, the Harmony of F...

— Nourse, Timothy (c.1636–1699)

Date: 1690, 1694, 1695, 1700, 1706

"For, though he that contemplates the Operations of his Mind, cannot but have plain and clear Ideas of them; yet unless he turn his Thoughts that way, and considers them attentively, he will no more have clear and distinct Ideas of all the Operations of his Mind, and all that may be observed ther...

— Locke, John (1632-1704)

Date: 1691

"And I hope you'll find 'em both, seeing Man is naturally an Inquisitive Creature, continually hankering after Novelties; and though for the most part a meer Stranger at home, regardless of the Geography of his own Breast, (as I shall shew in a Treatise entituled, A Map of Man: Or, Vander in Mina...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)